


Waking nightmare

by kinpika



Series: A Perfect World [5]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Implied Relationship, Pregnancy, Shame, Ties into my other one, With a Garou
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-02 01:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6544111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinpika/pseuds/kinpika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Horror filled him, as Camilla closes her eyes. “Camilla,” he says, repeats. “Camilla, stop this.”</i><br/><i>Camilla, please, if you will not do it for your child, do it for </i>me!</p><p> </p><p>Leon bearing witness to his sister's shame, only made his burn a little brighter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waking nightmare

“Are we truly going to do this?” he asked, again, quite possibly lurking on the umpteenth time, but his answer was still the same.

“Marx will never find the time for such a thing.” Camilla repeats it without so much as a hitch in her stride, as she is still fishing through drawers, neatly stacking papers in piles. Leon knew at least three of those piles were for correspondence, developments in the capital and letters from war. It was the rest that were lost on him.

Placing the book he was holding back, Leon begins on the next. Flicking through, his thumb catches on piece of paper, a children’s drawing marking no page in particular. Leon recognises the drawing, a _hmph_ of a laugh leaving him, and the drawing ends up alongside the other little bits and pieces from their childhood. It did not hurt so much now, as it had. Maybe, Leon attributed it to himself making his peace with Garon’s change long ago. It was the others who were still struggling, Marx notably, as if still searching for something amongst the ruins that proved Garon still loved them.

Except, he had left going through the study to them, heading to Hoshido on some errand or another. Elise had joined him, cawing something about seeing Princess Sakura once more. Leon had said something or another about her just wanting to see the Princes, and he had earned a look that had him almost embarrassed for the suggestion. Not like it was anything out of the ordinary. With a truce, treaty, and a neutral land, anything leading towards marriage to unify the two countries in their entirety was likely. 

Leon could not help the look towards Camilla then. She had been far too adamant in ‘staying out of it’. After the war, she had gone off for a time, travelling. At one point, she had joined Kamui, and had then returned just as spontaneously as she had left. Elise had pressed for where she had gone, what she had seen, and Camilla had just smiled, like she always had. 

But it _was_ different, Leon could tell. Camilla spent far more time looking out windows than she ever had, and refused to join in even simple gatherings with the local lords and ladies. Under the weather, is what Marx had passed it off as. And then he had round up some soldiers and left for Hoshido. 

Under the weather, Leon repeated in his head, a small snort following. Just like their father had been. 

“ _Oof_.”

Looking over, Leon catches Camilla pushing herself up, grip on the desk just that fraction stronger than necessary, a little too much exertion on her face. “Camilla…? Are you alright?”

“Fine,” she nearly sings, waving him off. “Just fine.”

Saying something about kneeling for too long, Camilla raps her knuckles along the tops and bottoms of drawers, catching the compartments far too easily. Leon would not have put it past her having snooped around as a young child. Camilla was always that sort, a little too wily as a teenager. They had all changed from those days, of course, and Leon has to relax his grip on the next book. It was not the time to think about those days.

Another heave of air, and this time Leon turns fully. Camilla sounded far too distressed for simply leafing through the last few years of letters. 

“Camilla?!”

Hunched over the desk, Camilla was shaking. Had he been any other man, he may have taken it for her crying. Had it been any other time, he may have simply taken it as her finding something from their father, her mother, an admission, an apology. Had Leon not known her any better, Leon would have been wrong. 

“What happened?!”

Camilla laughs, sound catching in her throat as another moan of pain leaves her. “A healer,” she groans, nails digging into hard wood, head dropped to the top of the desk, “call a healer!”

Leon does not think twice, running into the hallway, yelling. Someone, anyone! Zero is the first one to respond to his cry, moving past so quietly, so easily. So undisturbed by the increasing sounds from Camilla, and the heavy thumping of feet against stone. “Lord Leon,” he calls, when Leon calls for help no more. “Let us move her somewhere more comfortable.”

“Y-yes, of course.” His legs are heavy as he moves, and perhaps it is not him walking towards his sister at all. Leon felt like a spectator, watching from another point in his room, as he steps closer, and closer still. Five feet, four feet, three, two, one. Arm outstretched, Leon was not entirely sure if he wanted to reach out to her or not.

“Camilla,” he repeats, voice small even to his own ears. “Camilla, what happened?”

Had she inadvertently let off a hex, read a letter that had been coated in some powder? Leon had heard that a choice method of killing off other mothers was through letters and poison. Maybe one of them had conspired against Garon, another bid to put their own child on the throne. Would they have truly lasted years to be touched? Leon should have gone through the drawers, he knew he should have. 

Looping Camilla’s arm over his shoulders, her weight slumps against him. And then, he hears the whispers. “Too early,” she mumbles, free hand on her belly. “Why is it so ear— _argh!!_ ”

Another guttural groan, and Zero has her other arm over his shoulders. They move, Camilla’s legs not keeping up with the pace. Eyes dropping, Leon notices the swell. Part of him wishes he did not, not with the way her chest heaved with each breath, how she shook as they practically dragged her out of the study. Part of him wished it would not be this way. 

“Who—” Stopping himself, Leon does not wish to know. Or, perhaps he truly did, seeing his sister in such pain, servants taking up the rear as a healer led the way. There were shouts, a man ahead was calling for someone else, a bucket of water spilt from a woman who was pushed out the way.

“Help me, Leon, _help me!_ ”

Blood. That was the next thing that followed. Leon smelt it first before he saw, and only increased his pace. No doubt, it had begun to trickle behind them, as there was a cry of shock, and the healers efforts doubled, trying to stem it, trying to determine _why._ Camilla bubbled, legs quite not keeping up to Leon’s pace. This was another one of those moments, when, had he been Marx, he may have been able to carry her the rest of the way. Had he been stronger, Camilla may not have—

No, that thought would not help him. Leon refused to delve into that dark pit, not with Camilla howling and healers running up the stairs. A small blessing when they finally reach her room, a few seconds spared only by the insistence of a servant to lay down something to cover the finery. It was not necessary, Leon hissed between his teeth. Not with blood trickling from between Camilla’s legs, and her cries about her baby.

When she is eased on the bed, Camilla does not let go of his arm, mumbling something about saving the baby, please, save my child. Leon does not cry, but he hides his face. What else can he do, when a midwife, begins telling Camilla to push. They needed to remove it. What was it, Camilla cawed back. _Save my baby! Leon, tell them to save my baby!_

Stop being so selfish, Leon thinks, but can never make himself say those words. Camilla was so ugly, crying, desperate, calling for her big brother to help her, for Leon. For Leon to help her, please, please, Leon. Something in Leon hammered, just enough, for all the wrong reasons.

“Worry about Camilla,” he says, turning to the healers. “Save her!” Selfish, his mind provides, but he ignores it.

“No, no no no Leon, no, please—” Her protests cut off by caught screams. 

Too many people are telling her to push, the blood has been stemmed (for now, he is told, for now), but Camilla is not moving. Shaking, but not moving. A woman at her other side places a cool towel on her forehead, telling her to breathe, to push, please Lady Camilla.

“Where is Belka?” she groans, after a push. “Where is Luna?”

“Luna left, along with Odin and Lazwald, remember?”

“Why did she leave me?” A sob. “What did I do wrong?”

“Camilla…”

Head falling back, Camilla does not look at him, just past his right ear, out the window. Another kind of pain gripped her, but it was not right. Not with that thing still in her. “Camilla, you have to push,” he says, voice just barely above a whisper. “Do not die, not like this.”

Smiling softly, Camilla finally looks at him, full focus, and full clarity. “You have grown, so much, Leon. So much…”

Sometimes, Leon wondered if he had truly done something horrible in another life. Not to say he had considered such a thing in its entirety, no matter how many times he and Prince Takumi squabbled over such minor details, but the thought was there. To say there was another life, a path of reincarnation, had he truly done despicable things in the past to deserve _this_.

Horror filled him, as Camilla closes her eyes. “Camilla,” he says, repeats. “Camilla, stop this.”

Camilla, _please_ , if you will not do it for your child, do it for me!

Leon wished it was his words that had brought her back, but they never truly left his tongue. If he closes his eyes and repeated the scene, she would stare at him with such a fire, and she would win. “Do it for your child,” he says instead, “think of your son. Or daughter! Think of their father!”

Hurts, he thinks, small and afraid, it hurts. Camilla comes back as a quiet roar, another scream as she pushes again. Leon lets her grip his hand, lets her nearly break him, again and again and again, because she does not see the tears in his eyes. She does not feel the pain, the suffering, the shame. 

Maybe there was shame in her, for this. Leon had half a mind to hoped that it haunted her, crippled her. Drove her forward into something new and different and longing. Longing for what? Leon cannot answer those questions himself, as he knows that Camilla is stronger than he is when it comes to matters of — the heart? He laughs at how pathetic that sounds.

With a final push, one of the healers is upon her once more, trying to stop the blood. Leon did not understand why there was so much blood. Surely there should not have been, even if the child was early. And yet, Leon had a simple moment of clarity to think, to wonder: how far along was Camilla in her pregnancy?

“It is a girl,” one of them says, but Leon can hear it in their voices. Disgust. But what for? Looking over at the midwives, as they huddled, one patting the back of the baby while the others whispered, a cold feeling gripped him.

They pronounce the baby a stillborn. There was no whine, no gurgle. A baby, that gets a disgusted round of gasps. Leon does not understand, does not see what the problem is until he is handed the bundle. Down, that is what he would describe it as. Like a soft, if matted, down, far longer than any _human_ child would have. Without thinking, Leon traces his finger around the rim of the baby’s ear, oddly fascinated.

It _twitches_. Leon nearly drops the baby in shock.

“Let me hold her.”

Camilla is helped to sit, and despite the protests, of not letting her hold her child, Leon passes the little girl over. She is small and meek, nose moving, ears flicking back and forth. Alive, and yet there was no response from her, once she was settled in Camilla’s arms. 

“Velour,” Camilla coos, a thumb brushing along the baby’s forehead. “Velour.”

Like a deep sigh, the baby inhales, sharp and nasally, as if not everything had quite developed. And yet, as Camilla held the child to her breast, there was no danger, like a great storm had passed. Like the way Camilla had begged him was just a passing daydream, a far off cloud, simply floating by. Leon hated it. 

Pushing himself up, Leon is not noticed as he begins to walk away. There is no clear cut emotion in him that tells him that is a good thing, that slipping out like he was served him better. Nothing to quite say it was the _right_ thing, as the door closes behind him. Zero was at his left, propped against the wall as if he had been there all along. Perhaps he had been. Leon wished he had been able to do that. 

Slowly, he begins to walk, hand bracing himself with each step. With each step, he hurts, just that little more, a punishment more than he deserved. And yet, Leon did not know what he was being punished for. That made it worse, doubling the punch to his gut as his legs finally give out and he slides down the wall. 

Leon does not cry, head falling back against the wall as he simply stares at the stone above. Burning from the inside out, he felt nothing but shame and anger, and regret.

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes i feel like i jump on leon and his shame and his back a little too much
> 
> anyway, tie-in to golden dream before i post the next chap. the explanation as to how camilla ~hid~ her pregnancy i suppose
> 
> again, if you are gonna have half-garou/yokai/dragon/anything babies, there are gonna be consequences. camilla's pregnancy wouldve clocked in around 5-5 1/2 months so she wouldve had a "belly" as such but also i like to think of camilla as being a big girl so yknow. an actual grey wolf last around 3-3 1/2 months, and ofc humans go for around 9. naturally, biology doesnt quite add up.  
> imo garou/yokai/draong babies would be born in their garou/yokai/dragon state and their mothers would be too when giving birth. which presents a whole other series of problems that will affect camilla later in the other fic probably. lol. anyway.


End file.
